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Bone craft manipulated bone into blades that were nigh unbreakable. It crafted healing tonics from bone powders, and poisons from boiled marrow. Blood craft used blood for spell casts and rune work. Soul craft took power from the dead, and was the common gift of Dravenmoor, the kingdom across the ravines.
Sprawled out on my bed, ankles crossed, Prince Thane the Bold smirked back at me, likely aware I’d been berating myself. In my haste to reach the washroom, I’d foolishly left my chamber unchecked. I frowned and it only widened his grin. You are an ass and belong in one of the hells. My fingers moved swiftly in response, but Thane could follow even my most frenzied gestures since he’d found me outside the keep, bloodied and broken, my voice carved out the same as my place in my own clan.
Ahh xrown prince befriends/adopts the abandoned child of the enemy. Betting the king is not a fan of his son lol
child whose magical craft brought three kingdoms against a small village in the knolls.
A melder has been hidden from the king. A woman.” Thane shook his head. “The first in five hundred winters, Roark. You know what this’ll bring.” War, was all I gave in a one-handed reply.
Damir would not allow anyone to take his prize again, and the queen of Dravenmoor would return for retribution for what she lost during those raids so long ago.
A melder’s craft was only found perhaps once a generation, and rarely in a woman’s blood. It was a collision of all three crafts—dangerous, coveted, and owned by Jorvan kings through treaties made long ago.
“Be careful, my friend. This woman will not be Fadey. I’d hate for her to bespell that dark heart of yours.” I scoffed. I’d slit her throat if she tried. I have no love for melders, and that will never change.
And the truth was, I’d assaulted the most dangerous man in the kingdom.
Lol can't wait for them to fall in love
To claim something as his—a strike, a kill, a horn of ale—Ashwood tapped whatever he wanted three times.
Oooohhhh
Roark removed his ax from the sheath on his back and handed it to me. One brow curved. “What—” I was unaccustomed to being interrupted by a man who did not speak, but Roark used his hands to command an interaction as fiercely as Baldur used shouts to overpower. He spoke one word, a gesture Emi had taught us on the ship—knowledge. “Do I know how to use it? I’m not as skilled as a Stav, but I can throw one. Might even know how to slit a throat if you’d like to test it.” Roark made a breathy sound.
He likes her already
The Sentry placed his palm against my cheek. I stiffened, eyes closed. But all he did was tap my face three times. Roark turned away in the next heartbeat and abandoned the hut. Pulse racing, I touched where Ashwood held his hand. Three taps—his gesture for claiming something as his. It meant mine.
aAHHH I KNEW IT
It was only in the moments before I fell into a fitful sleep that I realized Roark Ashwood found me without a torch. He was able to slash at the wolf, calm its soul, and find me in the shadows with only a sliver of moonlight to guide him. He’d written in the darkness without trouble. Roark never truly responded to my query about the bones, merely spoke of a melder’s sight, but he’d moved about the clearing as though he could see the strange, frightening glow of bones the same as me.
He's a soul craft
I frowned. If the Norns kept me alive all so my fate would place me in captivity within Stonegate, I rather hated them.
What was the reason you finally left Dravenmoor?” When Emi faced me, her lips curled in a sort of snarl. “I had to flee.” “Had to? Didn’t you say you were young when you arrived at Stonegate?” “Only fourteen.” “They drove you out?” “I ran before they could.” “What happened?” Emi’s eyes flashed with a touch of malice. “I tried to cut off my father’s head.” With a wink, more condescending than kind, Emi slipped past me and entered the camp.
Emi is giving Hekla vibes
“Ah, did you flee like a little, frightened girl?” “Watch yourself, Captain,” Thane snapped. “You speak recklessly toward my Sentry. Continue and I will enjoy taking out your tongue.” It was not often the prince showed the darker edges of his soul, but when he did it captivated the whole of a room.
Yes thane
Absorbed in the motion of threading the sliver into Damir’s neck, I never took note how the walls darkened, like a shade pulled over the lancet windows, blotting out the sun. Flames in the inglenook died, filling the hall with the gust of a winter wind. The eerie glow from bodies of the consorts, the prince, and the queen lined the tattered and chipped table.
BUT NOT OF ROARK!!!!
“Crimson in the rune of a warrior signifies the blood of those lost in the Divisive Wars. Bronze in the rune of loyalty stands for the treaties of craft between Jorvandal and Myrda. Gold in the rune of protection, a vow from these walls to always protect those who remain loyal and steadfast against our enemies.”
Lyra’s eyes tracked my hands. When I lowered my palm, she swallowed, her voice went softer. “As I said, must…must be my craft.” It wasn’t craft. This draw, this dangerous pull, was something more. I hated her for what she represented. Pain, blood, anger. I hated her for the risks she brought merely by having melder craft. But another part of me wanted to hate her at a nearer distance. And each damn day the desire to stay away cracked and shed more of its strength.
thirsty?” All at once a thought—perhaps a memory—snapped through my head like a lash across my mind. Shadows were thick, only the flicker of golden light from a few lanterns danced across the mossy stones of a feed barn. Keep low. Keep down. He’d flog me with his belt if I stepped out of line of his command. He was already in a piss-poor mood since I snuck away to join his march. “You look thirsty. Have you been lost in the wood?” My stomach backflipped. I whirled around, yanking a small whittling knife from my belt. I was met with dust-covered cheeks, messy soil-brown braids, and dark eyes
...more
Thane cursed when a Stav Guard ran past the wall, a ravager with a long, bearded ax three paces behind. The prince let an arrow fly; the point split through the side of the ravager’s neck. “By the gods.” I stumbled back when he loaded another arrow. Thane winked. “I’m more than just pretty, Lyra Bien.”
Thane is hilarious
A ghostly shape of the palace surrounded me, but it was as though I could see it from all sides, nearly omniscient. With the slightest lean to one side, all at once, lawns, courtyards, and palace towers flowed into view. Near the queen’s wing was a mist of shadows, darker than the rest.
Because she's evil
Nothing I could do. I was not king here.
But yoi would be baxk homeeeee
You are not to leave your chamber unaccompanied. She scoffed. “My escort was nowhere to be found.” Then you wait. “I should not be held prisoner because you wish to puff out your chest on the sparring field.” One half of my mouth quirked. You were looking at my chest?
Aaayyyeeee
Soon, Edvin’s form glowed with his frantic steps, and Kael’s gilded body didn’t move, a silent observer, but his arms were folded in a way that had me convinced he was gnawing on the nail of his thumb. On the opposite side of the bed, a glowing Hilda and Emi had taken up the positions of Kael and Edvin, likely manipulating any broken bones on the prince while I melded.
But no roaek again
Tomas nodded vigorously. “Many sagas believe the female melders have stronger craft. Tends to connect deeper with their gentler souls, I suppose.” If only he knew an assassin’s shadow drew me in whenever I slipped into the mirrored lands of the fallen.
Unease slithered low in my belly. I did not care for being seen as some sort of possession merely because of the blood in my veins. King Damir saw me as such. Now, it would seem, so did Myrda.
The dagger flew, drawing a shout of pain, a clack of snapping teeth. The blade buried into Skul Drek’s side to the hilt. In another breath, Roark rushed the assassin. Skul Drek waved a hand and the dagger clattered to the floorboards when Roark met him with the second blade. “No!” I snatched hold of the stoker near the inglenook. My cry snapped Skul Drek from his haze. Like a haunt in the night, he slipped through the open window without a sound, fading into the darkness. Roark stumbled toward the window, clutching his side, sweat on his brow. Gods, he’d been struck.
My brain hurts but this is confirming my suspicions
dozen words I wanted to whisper against her lips danced in my mind—she brightened my heart, my damn soul.
Yes brightening your creepy assassin soul that you aren't in control of?!
Elisabet looked back to Roark. “We’re not here to battle, after all. We only have cause for celebration. My second son, our prince, has finally returned home.”
KNEW IT
